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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27527269">there is very little left of me and it's never coming back</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFlirtMeister/pseuds/TheFlirtMeister'>TheFlirtMeister</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ghosts (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Mentions of Murder, POV Second Person, The Hitchhiker Is Already Dead, Yuletide Madness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 06:13:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>500</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27527269</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFlirtMeister/pseuds/TheFlirtMeister</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>But she runs from you. </p><p>And you have nothing else to do. </p><p>So you follow.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide Madness 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>there is very little left of me and it's never coming back</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamjar/gifts">jamjar</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Merry Yuletide!</p><p>I saw this prompt and I couldn't resist.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You’re 22 years old and you were murdered. These are the two things you know. You had a name once, and a family, and perhaps a small dog that yapped when the post arrived.</p><p>But now you are dead.</p><p>Every night is the same, the street corner, arm outstretched, rain splattered against your face as your woollen jumper shrinks around you. And then a lorry stops, and you get in, and then the next night arrives, over and over and over.</p><p>This woman is the first person to talk to you in <em>years</em>.</p><p>You like her hair first, loose around her shoulders, not like your own, confined forever in plaits. She smells of old books, wet paint, mothballs, and she smiles when she looks at you. When she speaks, you can smell the faint tinge of alcohol on her breath. Perhaps she’s come from a party. Did you used to go to parties? You can’t remember.</p><p>You wonder if you ended up the same way, longing for a connection, something to bond the two of you. You want to know if she saw the same lorry, if her memories were destroyed like your own.</p><p>But she runs from you.</p><p>And you have nothing else to do.</p><p>So you follow.</p><p>You walk for a long time. You didn’t even know you could walk away from the street corner, but here you are, walking and walking and walking, until the city bleeds into the countryside. You can feel the tug of the woman in your stomach, and maybe you’ve never been good at trusting your instincts, but this feels right.</p><p>Sometimes there are people who walk alongside you, a Victorian girl who strokes the embroidered flowers on your jumper and wishes she had one just like it, a gangly boy on a mangled bicycle who tells the dirtiest jokes you’ve ever heard, a fat tabby cat that swerves in and out of your path, trying to trip you up.</p><p>You walk through the rusty gates of Button House, feeling the house groan with your arrival, the weight of another to its collection. You shiver with the weight of everyone here, you can feel them underneath your skin, tucked beneath the floorboards, between the walls, hidden in the attic. Even stretching out into the garden, you feel the heartbeats of men, women, and children thumping in your own veins.</p><p>For a moment you wonder if this is a trap, but then you hear men’s laughter from upstairs, a radio blaring pop tunes, the thrum of chatter from the people down below. They are happy here. This is a safe space.</p><p>Then, her voice from the top of the stairs, surprised and curious.</p><p>“Oh!” She says, “What are you doing here? How are you here?”</p><p>You drop your satchel bag onto the wooden floor, and it stays there firmly at your feet. You stare up into her worried face and taste her name where every ghost has whispered it.</p><p>“Alison,” You say. “I’m home.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comment and The Hitchhiker will have a wonderful life in Button House and Alison will solve her murder :D</p></blockquote></div></div>
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